


Small Packages

by moolktea



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Fluff, M/M, extremely self indulgent + bad writing HASHFSDH, nero propaganda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 17:57:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18665473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moolktea/pseuds/moolktea
Summary: The talking cat thing wants pizza at three in the morning? Such is Nero’s fucked up life, he supposes.Or in which Nero, out on an evening trudge through the rain, runs into a pocket-sized, alien cat...thing, and adopts it. Or maybe it adopts him--he isn't quite sure either way.





	Small Packages

**Author's Note:**

> spardaweek day 3... Eating out/Little spoon, big spoon/strawberry sundae/Vehicles  
> honestly this is not good this is just a 0 context excuse to fulfill my nero babies tiny dante desires  
> inspried by pocket dante pic by ray..........extrmeely amazing.....pls go praise.....  
> https://twitter.com/killm___e/status/1123301544420564993  
> amazin...HAFHHADHS

For some reason--probably because the universe hates Nero--the weather only seems to get bad when Nero is stuck in it. This is especially unfair because it almost always rains in a city like Fortuna, and yet, somehow, whenever Nero seems to be enjoying a comfortable night in the safety of his own home, the sky is as clear as can be.

He coughs into his scarf, pulling it up further as he shivers in the wind, holding onto the hideous pink and white rabbit-print umbrella that Kyrie had forced onto him before he’d left her and Nico’s apartment. 

Nero’s almost absolutely certain they bought this thing for the express purpose of giving it to him, if the way that Nico howled with laughter in the background at the look on Nero’s face was any indication. Though Kyrie’s smile had seemed sympathetic and good-natured on the outside, Nero’s been her best friend since they were six years old, and he knows all too well the glint in her eyes when she’s up to something.

He’s never helping them out with anything again.

Even with the horrible umbrella, the intensity of the wind is blowing rainwater into his face, soaking his long bangs with it, and he’s forced to keep wiping his eyes with the damp sleeve of his hoodie. It’s a useless gesture, since he can barely see where he’s going anyway.

Nero stops at a crosswalk and contemplates his options.

All things considered, he really should just find a relatively sheltered park bench or a bus stop and wait out the storm, because walking around in the rain isn’t very good for anyone. On the other hand, he still has the rest of his Art History paper to write, and his portfolios aren’t just going to complete themselves. 

He’s faced worse, he can tough it out. Probably.

Besides, the sooner he got home, the more quickly he could take a long, hot shower, wrap himself up in his fluffy blankets, and collapse on his couch for a good thirty-minute nap or so. If there’s one thing Nero hates, it’s being cold, something that isn’t exactly helped by his chronic respiratory issues.

His breathing is already shallow, rattles uncomfortably in his sore chest, and he knows that he can’t stand around here just thinking about what to do for much longer.

Shifting his grip on the umbrella to his other hand, he’s about to start forward when he notices a flash of red out of the corner of his eye. It’s too dark to see properly, but Nero thinks he can make out what appears to be a very soggy, very tiny red...blob of sorts. 

The other thing that he can’t help but notice is the car to his left, which appears to be happily ignoring the stoplight in front of it, and his rushing straight ahead. The red blob in its path squirms about, like it’s trying to move, but can’t, and Nero realizes, with a sinking sensation in his stomach, that whatever it is, it’s very much alive.

_ Ah, shit. _

Nero does a lot of stupid things, but what he does next is by far the absolute worst of them all.

Tossing aside his umbrella without a second thought, Nero dashes out onto the street and leaps towards the red thing, scooping it up in his arms. He feels a slight tug of resistance, before there’s a sharp ripping sound and he and his bundle break free. Using the leftover momentum, Nero barely manages to roll out of the way of the car, which comes to a screeching halt a few centimeters away from his face.

He lays there on the road for a long moment, his heart beating rapidly in his chest, coughing up his unfortunately inadequate lungs, the cold rain soaking into his skin. With as much effort as he can muster, he tilts his head up and finds a very curious pair of blue eyes looking back at him.

“What the fuck are you?” Nero coughs out, looking the shivering thing on his chest over. 

It’s...a...person?

Not only is said person incredibly small, probably tiny enough to fit in Nero’s pocket, but it also has a pair of very wet looking cat ears sticking up from its soaked white hair. As if to complete the look, he sees a soggy tail swish upwards, before curling around his side.

Whatever the thing is, it doesn’t get to answer, because there’s the sound of a car door being open and shut, before a very drunk-sounding litany of curses fills the air and the driver storms up to them.

“Oh, God, please don’t be dead, what the  _ fuck _ , kid?” The man spits out, looming over Nero, blinking down hard at him.

Nero coughs again, instinctively wrapping an almost protecting arm around the tiny cat-thing, holding him close to his chest as he gets to his feet, glaring back at the inebriated man.

“That’s my fucking line, asshole!” He snaps out, wiping at his eyes with his free arm again. “You blind or something? It was a red light!”

“Are  _ you  _ blind?” comes the defensive retort, and suddenly, a hand lashes out and seizes Nero’s collar, yanking him closer. Nero grabs the thick wrist of his current assailant, but he can’t quite stop coughing, and the lack of oxygen is really starting to fuck with his head.

“The hell did you run out on the street for?”

There’s a sudden growl coming from between them, and both of them look down to see the thing wrapped in Nero’s arm literally hissing at the man, his little cat ears pinned back against his head, his tail lashing back and forth angrily.

Not a very intimidating sight, unfortunately, considering how the thing is still trembling violently in Nero’s arms from the cold, but Nero appreciates the gesture nonetheless. 

To his surprise, though, the man immediately lets go of him, stumbling backward, staring at the thing with wide eyes.

“What the fuck--?” He mutters to himself, rubbing at his eyes, and Nero assumes that the man is so drunk that he can’t tell if he’s seeing things or not. 

Deciding to take advantage of the distraction, Nero curls his lips into a smirk, trying to stifle back his cough. The head brushed up against his shirt twists slightly, and what feels like a very small hand gently presses against Nero’s chest in what Nero thinks is supposed to be a soothing sort of motion. 

Weird, but not unpleasant.

“What’re you looking at?” Nero asks innocently of the man, pretending to look down in confusion at his own arms. “There’s nothing here, is there?”

The cat-thing seems to get what he’s playing at, and happily waves at the man, who is looking increasingly confused by the second, eyes darting back and forth between Nero’s face and the creature.

“Screw this,” he finally mutters, piling back into his car, and while Nero really doesn’t like this guy, he knows he can’t let this asshole just drive off drunk freely. He could hurt himself, or worse, other people. Almost  _ did  _ hurt someone else.

He fishes out his phone, ready to call the police so this guy can spend a nice, toasty night in jail instead of the morgue, but his phone is unfortunately very dead.

They’ll have to do this the hard way, then.

“Hey, wait--!” Nero darts forward, catching the door of the car before it can close. The man looks up him, like he’s a piece of gum on the bottom of his shoe, and Nero immediately regrets his decision, but isn’t about to back down now. 

He’s not so shitty of a person that he’d let knowingly this guy ruin his life, no matter how much he’s managed to ruin Nero’s night.

“You’re drunk as fuck. You got a friend I can call to come get you?”

He receives a grunt in response, and Nero sighs, shifting the still trembling cat-thing further into his right arm, and pulling the guy up with his left. There isn’t much resistance coming from the other, probably because the adrenaline of having almost hit Nero with his car is wearing off and he looks very ready to sleep.

Nero glances around him, knowing they can’t just stay here in the rain, even if it is letting up somewhat, and spots a twenty-four-hour diner within the vicinity, virtually the only place still open at this hour. Not exactly ideal, but at least all three of them can get dry and Nero can maybe stop fucking coughing for maybe five minutes.

His mind made up, he looks down at the little cat thing, who has been nearly silent this entire time.

“Uh. Don’t know if you can understand me, but...you mind, like…walking on your own or something? I kind of need a free hand here.”

“Sure, kid,” is what he gets in response, and Nero yelps in absolute surprise, nearly dropping the cat-thing in shock.

Wait.

_ Kid? _

“Hold on, short stuff--you’re like, the size of my pocket! The fuck do you mean, kid?”

The cat purrs in what seems like amusement at Nero’s expensive before wriggling out of his arms, and, as if to prove Nero’s point, buries himself into the pocket of his hoodie. 

“Probably should talk later,” he says, reminding Nero that he is standing here in the rain, holding onto a drunk stranger with one hand and talking to fucking a cat-person-alien  _ thing _ .

Maybe he’s having a dream. A very horrible, realistic, incredibly cold dream.

_ Fuck  _ his life.

With his hand finally free, he scoops up his umbrella, then makes his way to the diner, trying not to think about anything too hard, lest he deem himself insane and bash his skull into the concrete several times.

A bit roughly, he hauls the drunk bastard into the diner, depositing him roughly into a booth where he immediately falls asleep. The only waitress there looks at him in askance, and he rubs at his neck, ducking his head shyly.

“Sorry for the mess,” he mumbles out, and he really is apologetic. This poor woman will be mopping up rainwater all night. “I’m going to buy something, I swear.”

She purses her lips, but says nothing, fetching a plastic menu from behind the counter and placing it on the table. Nero gently fishes the creature out of his pocket, putting it down on the table so it can read the text. If it could read at all, that was.

“Here, uh...I don’t know. Look for something you want. I gotta deal with this piece of shit.”

He prods the guy roughly awake, waving the man’s own phone in front of his face. 

“Wake the fuck up and get one of your friends to take you home.” 

Sure, the guy’s car was most likely gonna get towed, but Nero figures that the asshole deserves it for putting him through all this, and in Nero’s opinion, facing a three hundred dollar or so fine was much better than facing jail time for vehicular manslaughter.

The man blinks at him hard but appears to understand him, sleepily reaching out for his own phone, eventually mumbling to whoever is on the other end of it. While he’s doing that, Nero strips off his sopping scarf and jacket, then looks over at the cat.

He’s got on a very small red coat with a large tear at the bottom of it, and Nero recognizes it as the source of the resistance he’d felt when trying to pull the cat to safety.

“You want that dried off?” He asks carefully, and the thing looks up from the menu it had been reading so intently before shrugging it off of his shoulders, handing it over to Nero.

Nero ducks into the bathroom, wringing the rainwater out of the bundle of clothes and drying it all off as best as he can with one of the hand driers. There’s not much he can do for his jacket, but at least the scarf and the tiny red coat escape relatively well off.

When he comes back, the cat is looking up at him expectantly.

“I want pizza, kid,” he announces as Nero hands his coat back to him.

Fine. Sure. Whatever. The talking cat thing wants pizza at three in the morning? Such is Nero’s fucked up life, he supposes.

“Yeah, yeah. What kind?”

He immediately regrets asking when he receives what appears to be an audiobook rendition of the entire ingredient list on the menu, with the exception of olives.

Talking cat thing wants pizza at three in the morning and hates olives, then.

“What can I get--?”

Nero looks up to see the poor waitress looking at them with unadulterated shock, her eyes drawn to the alien looking thing standing on her table. He swears he’ll tip this lady a twenty dollar bill when the night is over, honest.

“I’d like a pizza,” he says calmly, like he’s not losing his entire fucking mind. “Everything on it, except for the olives.”

“And a strawberry sundae!” The thing chimes in petulantly, and Nero thinks the waitress is going to drop dead on the spot.

“Please,” he begs, and enough of his desperation must bleed through his voice to convince her, because her expression softens, somewhat. “Don’t ask.”

She doesn’t ask, probably because literally everything about this situation is a can of worms that absolutely no one in their right mind wants to open. Instead, she stands very still, looking them over for a long moment before she sighs out.

“As long as I get paid.”

As soon as she disappears into the back, Nero groans, folding his arms on the table and dropping his head into them, trying to suppress his coughing. He feels a very tiny hand drop onto the top of his head, like the cat is trying to  _ pet  _ him.

It’s admittedly nice, until the thing starts talking to him again.

“Thanks for the help, kid. Name’s Dante, by the way--but I had the situation taken care of. Could’ve handled it myself.”

Nero tilts his head to the side to give ‘Dante’ a dubious look, hoping the expression on his face is enough to convey exactly how he feels about all this.

“I know I look a little weird. Glad you’re not questioning it.”

“Oh, I’m definitely fucking questioning it,” Nero mutters, sitting upright and dragging his hands down his face. “But too much shit is going on right now, and I’m afraid to ask, because if I do, I will just inevitably fall into more shit.”

“Fair enough.”

Dante gives a little shrug before sitting down, crossing his legs casually. 

“I don’t usually look like this, I swear. I’m quite the looker in my true form, if it makes you feel any better.”

“It really doesn’t.”

Nero is luckily spared from having any more of this conversation when the waitress returns with Dante’s pizza and the cat practically pounces on it, his tail swishing happily in the air, blue eyes sparking with delight. Dante tugs a pizza slice upwards, with some effort, apparently struggling to actually pick it up.

After several failed attempts, his little ears droop downwards in what Nero can only assume is sadness, and he turns large blue eyes onto Nero, who immediately feels like he’s very much in danger.

“Hey, kid…”

“What? It’s your pizza, you figure it out!” Nero sputters, and in response, Dante’s entire form seems to hunch on itself, a very pitiful, betrayed look crossing his tiny face.

_ Fuck _ .

Nero crosses the diner in an instant, gathering up a plastic knife and fork and doing his best to keep the irritated scowl on his face as he returns. With great reluctance, he begins to cut the pizza up into tiny bite-sized pieces, like he does for the four-year-olds he sometimes babysits. 

“Wow. You always this easy?”

Nero has absolutely no fucking idea why an offhand comment from an alien monster cat has the power to make him feel like he’s drowning in a volcano, but he swears his clothes should be dry by now with how much body heat he must be radiating at this moment.

“I’m serious! First that asshole over there, then me. Damn, you sure are picking guys up left and right.”

“You don’t count!”  He sends a forceful glare down at Dante, who is paying him absolutely no mind anymore, picking up the downsized pizza slices with both of his tiny hands and stuffing them into his mouth with great gusto. 

“What’s your name, by the way? Figure I should get to know it, after everything you’ve done,” Dante mumbles out, spewing out crumbs and tomato sauce as he speaks, which Nero observes with some measure of disgust.

“It’s Nero,” he provides, taking a napkin from the nearby dispenser and beginning to wipe off the flecks of red from the table, brushing the crumbs into a neat pile. His efforts, unfortunately, are continuously offset by Dante’s voracious appetite as the thing continues its attempts to make conversation around mouthfuls of pizza.

“Good to meet you,  _ Newo _ ,” Dante badly mangles the pronunciation of Nero’s name, his speech obstructed by the fullness of his mouth. “Lucky me that I ran into you, huh? What’s a kid like you doing out at this time of night?”

“Was helping a friend with something. Got caught in the rain.”

“Huh. Well, at least you were prepared,” Dante remarks, nodding to the rabbit-print umbrella folded up at Nero’s side and Nero automatically snatches it up and away from Dante’s view, his cheeks a bright pink.

“It’s not mine!” 

“It should be. It suits you.”

Nero is stunned into silence and resorts to silently seething in embarrassment, rubbing at his sore chest as he tries to adjust his breathing. He’s almost certainly going to wake up sick tomorrow morning--or today morning, technically--and he wishes he had Kyrie’s immune system. In their thirteen years of friendship, he’s never known her to get sick once.

When he looks back to check on Dante’s progress, he’s rather alarmed to see that the entire pizza is gone, and Dante is laying back on the table, rubbing at his stomach in satisfaction.

_ Nero  _ can’t even eat a whole pizza by himself, much less one with as many toppings as Dante put on it.

“What kind of fucking monster are you?” He demands, both in curiosity and in mild terror, his words slightly muffled by the fact that he’s coughing into the crook of his elbow.

Instead of answering, Dante frowns.

“You good there, kid?”

Nero waves a hand, fully prepared to explain away his illness after making a lifetime habit of playing it off. “It’s fine. Throat itches. Nothing big.”

One of Dante’s fluffy ears twitches and the cat shuffles closer to him. 

“Really? Had a listen to your breathing when you were cuddling me. Sounded pretty crackly up there to me. You should probably get out of those wet clothes.”

“Dante, we’re in a diner.”

“So? Having a few witnesses around never stopped me. In fact, watch this--”

Nero yelps, reaching out a hand and tugging Dante’s tiny shirt back down, restraining the other’s small hands gently in an attempt to stop the cat from literally stripping down in public. 

“Am I...interrupting something?”

To his extreme mortification, their waitress is back, holding the tall glass of ice cream sundae in her hands, watching them with a raised eyebrow, and Nero jerks his hands back like he’s been burned.

“No!” He emphatically protests, at the same time that Dante’s simultaneously purrs out a “Sure are.”

She wordlessly sets the glass down, and Nero takes one look at it and then Dante, mentally comparing their sizes.

“Wait, sorry--don’t you have like...any smaller spoons?” 

She hands him a plastic spoon from her apron, one of those tiny ones clearly meant for sampling.

“Huh. You catch on quick,” Dante compliments, and Nero averts his gaze, shoving the tiny spoon at him. 

“But not quick enough, it seems. I can barely reach the top of the glass, kid.”

It’s true--even standing up at his full height, Dante’s eyes can barely peek over the rim of the glass, much less the three scoops of strawberry-covered vanilla ice cream piled on top. Nero understands exactly what Dante is implying he should do, but really, really doesn’t want to be right.

Dante sits back down, lounging back on his hands.

Nero’s right, then.

He glances around himself, making sure their waitress isn’t watching before he digs the spoon into the ice cream and holds it out to Dante with a sigh. This is the new worst thing he’s ever done--he doesn’t even know  _ why  _ he’s doing this, he barely knows this creature.

Dante leans forward, taking opening his mouth and taking a bite from the spoon, and Nero can see the points of his canine teeth poking out as he completes the motion, licking at his lips happily. 

It’s...unfortunately cute. 

“You’re the best. Get me a strawberry this time?”

The strawberry won’t actually fit in the spoon, so Nero is forced to pluck it out with his fingers and hold it out to Dante, who seems completely unbothered by the fact that he is literally being hand fed by Nero.

“Are you always this...needy?” Nero grumbles, blushing deeply as he feels Dante’s tiny tongue against his fingers as Dante licks the strawberry juice from them.

“Usually more, actually.”

Nero shudders as he tries to imagine it, and finds that he quite honestly can’t.

“You’ll see as time goes on,” Dante continues, and Nero is definitely getting sick, because it takes him at least a minute to process what the implications of that are. 

“Wait, you’re staying with me?” Nero blurts out, probably sounding a little less enthusiastic than he should, because Dante glances up at him mid-bite of ice cream, his ears dropping downwards slightly and his tail coming to a limp halt against the table.

The cat swallows down the rest of the ice cream, then looks almost longingly at the rest, and, not entirely against his will, Nero feels his heart softening. He sticks the spoon back in the ice cream, letting it rest there as he reaches out with his now free hand to tentatively pet Dante’s head, rubbing the soft hair right between his fluffy ears.

“Sorry. Was just surprised, that’s all. I mean, I wouldn’t kick you back out into the rain, at least.”

Dante’s tail reaches up and curls gently around his wrist, the soft fur tickling against Nero’s bare skin, and he does his best to avoid looking into Dante’s eyes, turning his head and coughing into his free arm, for once grateful for the excuse that his sickness affords him.

“Awfully trusting, aren’t you? I could be a dangerous murderer.”

“You’re not even one foot tall.”

But Dante is right--Nico and Kyrie have told him the exact same thing, many times before, that Nero is far too trusting in the nature of other people. It’s not like Nero can help it, though. He’s spent his entire life being judged for how he looks and what he is, and he never wants to push that kind of treatment on others.

“Sure, sure. Don’t worry, kid--if anything happens to you, I’ll keep you safe,” Dante promises, and Nero eyes him skeptically.

“Again, see one foot tall.”

“Size isn’t everything, kid.” 

Dante’s tail releases his wrist, then bats at him lightly, which Nero takes as an indication to continue spoon-feeding him ice cream.

“Is that supposed to justify how much you eat?” Nero retorts, even as he takes another spoonful of the ice cream. He’s being an enabler--typical of him, really. 

“Hey, I haven’t gotten a proper meal in a while,” Dante defends himself, and Nero looks down at him, biting thoughtfully at his lip.

The cat doesn’t appear to have had many connections, and considering how unkempt he looked, Dante had likely been alone for a long time before Nero found him. The thought is oddly sad, and Nero doesn’t want to think on it for much longer, pushing it away with a light frown.

“Well, you’d better get used to home cooking, because I’m not taking you out to eat like this every night, I hope you know.”

Dante happily bumps the top of his head against Nero’s wrist in response, and it takes a moment for Nero to realize that something like a low purr is coming from the tiny thing. 

So Nero’s basically adopted a pet, it seems.

True to his reputation, Dante polishes off the last of the ice cream and immediately curls up on himself, looking very ready to fall asleep after being so well fed. He makes a squeaky little sound of protest as his skin touches the very cold table, and Nero, after a long moment of contemplation, sighs deeply before reaching for his scarf.

“You’d better not drool on this.”

He folds it up in a makeshift sort of bed, picking Dante up gently and wrapping him up in it. The scarf is thankfully completely dry by now, and rather warm, if the way that Dante’s purrs increase in volume as he nestles himself into the folds of fabric is any indication.

“Smells nice, kid,” the cat comments, and Nero tries to pretend that he doesn’t realize that the scarf smells like  _ him _ .

While Dante is napping, Nero pulls out his wallet, counting out the appropriate amount of cash to pay for Dante’s food, leaving the waitress a very generous tip for putting up with the general insanity of the night. 

The drunk stranger is still out cold in the booth, but Nero’s already done his job and gotten his friend to come get him, and so he  _ really  _ doesn’t want it to be his problem anymore. Besides, Nero himself is incredibly close to passing out, and he would much rather do it in the safety of his own bed than on a table in a backwater diner.

He scoops up Dante, adjusting him carefully in his arms, noting with no small amount of gratefulness that the rain has stopped.

Dante shifts in his arms, drooling all over his scarf as he heads out, making his way back to his own tiny apartment, but Nero can’t find it in his heart to wake the other up, not when he looked so peaceful and sleepily satisfied. 

He can always wash the scarf, anyway.

The other awakens briefly when Nero puts him down on his bed and changes into his much drier nightclothes, rubbing at his messy hair with a yawn.

“Nice place,” Dante mumbles, rolling over and taking Nero’s scarf with him, hugging it to his chest like it’s some kind of security blanket. “You coming to bed?”

“Yeah, in a second,” Nero mutters, opening up his drawer and rooting around for his cough medicine. There isn’t much in the bottle left, probably not even enough in a full dose, and he winces. As much as he needs it, he probably won’t be getting to fall asleep tonight.

Dante is watching him through narrowed eyes, ears lazily pricked towards him as Nero gives up and lays back, his head sinking into the pillows as he shuts his eyes.

There’s a soft shifting noise, and then a warm weight is suddenly pressed against his chest.

He cracks open an eye as Dante begins purring on top of him, which is oddly soothing to the soreness in his muscles.

“I gotta look out for you, kid,” the cat explains, gently rubbing at Nero’s skin through his nightshirt with a small hand. 

Nero feels his usual urge to cough slowly fading away underneath Dante’s gentle purring, and he lets his hand drop into Dante’s hair, carefully petting him between his soft ears.

“Sure, Dante.”

Later, in the morning, he’ll do his best to figure out what the hell Dante even is, but he has class in about three hours and it’s the first night in a long time that he’s been able to sleep without being bothered by his cough.

Maybe he’s just insane. Or stupid.

Whatever the reason, Nero is done thinking for today.

He shuts his eyes and drifts off to sleep, Dante’s purring lulling him into unconsciousness.

 

* * *

 

When he wakes up, he’s in a different position than before.

He’s laying on his side, with something very firm and broad pressed against his back, a thick forearm slung carelessly across his waist, the hand sneaking up his shirt and resting against his stomach.

At first, Nero thinks he’s maybe gotten drunk and ended up with a one night stand gone on for too long in his bed, but when he twists his head around to look at the intruder, he meets a very familiar pair of blue eyes.

_ “Dante?”  _ He yelps in surprise, immediately coloring when he notices their rather intimate position--the other man is essentially spooning him. And Nero had evidently slept through the entire thing, including the bizarre transformation from tiny, adorable cat creature to...this.

Seems like Nero understands even less about the situation than he’d previously thought.

“Morning, kid,” Dante says lowly, in what is a much, much deeper voice than he had previously possessed, and Nero feels himself heat up with embarrassment as jumbled memories of the previous night come back to him.

He makes a few attempts at speaking, mostly strangled sputters as his brain struggles to catch up to the present, but he doesn’t get much of a chance to recover before Dante leans in closer, his mouth brushing against the sensitive shell of Nero’s ear.

“You took such good care of me last night...mind if I return the favor?”

Instead of answering, Nero twists his head to look at the clock. It’s eight in the morning, meaning he has about an hour to get ready.

Pressing a firm hand against Dante’s very naked, very large chest, he tries to free himself.

“I have to go to class,” he starts to say, but stops dead when he feels the tail that wraps around his thigh, the tip dipping into the loose waistband of his boxers.

“You can’t stay any longer?” Dante asks, and Nero is greatly dismayed to see that his pleading expression is absolutely no less effective now that Dante is very much human-sized. “Sure, I ate well last night, but I think I’m still pretty hungry…”

The terrible line fuels Nero with enough fury to finally push the bigger man off of him, sitting up and tossing a pillow into Dante’s face.

“Please stop talking.”

Nero runs his fingers through his hair, pushing the covers off him, and immediately regretting it when he realizes that Dante is naked from the waist down, as well.

“Told you my true form was impressive,” Dante comments, lowering the pillow, only to get promptly hit in the face with another one.

“Just...stay here, okay?” Nero orders, trying to look for his clothes to change into. He’d come to terms with the fact that he’d been adopting a cat sometime before falling asleep last night, but he certainly hadn’t expected to be accommodating a full-sized  _ man  _ in his apartment.

He needs time to figure what to do now, and he most definitely needs to call Kyrie and Nico and have them check his sanity levels.

“You’re just gonna let me be lonely?” 

“You’re a cat...or something like that. Find something to entertain yourself with.”

“Well, I guess I can do that….gonna need to borrow your scarf again, though.”

The only response that Dante gets is the slamming of the door as Nero gathers up the rest of his stuff and leaves for class.

He does, however, leave his scarf behind with Dante.

Just in case.

**Author's Note:**

> https://twitter.com/moolktea  
> twitter...


End file.
